Southington's School Volunteers Honored

SOUTHINGTON — A catered lunch, praise and kind words were the bottom line Tuesday of a ceremony to honor nearly 100 volunteers whose work ranged from office help to assisting math-challenged students.

"You are the glue that holds our schools together," Bob Brown, president of the 560-member teacher union, told the volunteers at the ceremony put on by the school central office. "Our public schools here are terrific and you are an integral part of that."

Volunteers filled most of the table in the banquet hall at Hawk's Landing golf course. Each table had a principal or school administrator seated with the volunteers, whose thousands of hours of donated time and skills were praised as noble, acts of kindness, and other superlatives by speakers.

Karen Smith, the assistant school superintendent who is serving as interim superintendent, told the volunteers the school staff is comforted to know that "if you need something, all you have to do is pick up the phone and someone will come to help.

Among the long-term volunteers are husband and wife team of Wally Bailey, a retired GE engineer, and Bettie Ann Bailey, a retired Southington teacher.

Wally Bailey has been volunteering in the middle schools for nearly 26 years, helping with math on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

"I started doing it because my wife was still teaching and I wanted to help out," he said Tuesday.

She said she began volunteering after she retired.

Across the room, Lisa Martin, who began volunteering nine years ago, and Casie Messina, a volunteer for seven years, said they got into helping in schools for the reason most of the volunteers in the room began : Each had a child or children in public school and wanted to help out there.

After the hour-long ceremony, school board member Zaya Oshana Jr. said it's important to thanks people for helping in the schools because "their work is what makes everything tick. They help under the radar, but what they do is so important."